Poor children ‘denied free nursery places’

SOME families are being denied access to free nursery education unless they agree to pay compulsory “top-up fees” for extra hours, MPs warned today.

The Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report says this practice risks excluding poorer families from accessing nurseries.

Three- and four-year-olds are entitled to 15 hours of Government-funded nursery education each week. But following an investigation the PAC has raised concerns that some families are being told they are eligible only if they pay for additional hours.

It says: “One witness suggested that compulsory top-up fees were commonplace in some nurseries and we have seen other evidence of parents being asked for further payments.”

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